


You're Bad At This (Pillow Talk)

by mrs_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AKA the real Steve Rogers, Escapist Fluff, Fluff, Fuck Nick Spencer, M/M, Punch all the Nazis, This is basically a love letter to MCU Steve Rogers, say no to HYDRA cap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 20:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10748892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Steve always gets chatty after sex.





	You're Bad At This (Pillow Talk)

**Author's Note:**

> I can't stop thinking about what MCU!Steve would say if he found out about what Marvel is doing with Captain America in the comics. And, because I'm me, these thoughts manifest in fluffy, naked SamSteve. Hope you enjoy my catharsis!

The mattress shifts behind him as Steve gets back into bed, smelling faintly of hand soap. Sam half-rolls over, turning his head for a messy, over-the-shoulder kiss when Steve nuzzles up close to him.

“Hey, Sam,” Steve says when they part.

Sam smiles. Here it comes, he thinks fondly. Steve always gets chatty after sex. He’ll tell Sam a story from his pre-war life, or just talk about his day, what he’s been reading, that kind of thing. Once in a while, they talk shop — how their last mission went, what to expect on the next one — but other times, Sam just lets him ramble. He enjoys the sound of Steve’s voice, but even more than that, he takes joy in the freedom that Steve lets himself have in these moments, when it’s just the two of them. Sam wouldn’t trade it for the world.

And he appreciates that Steve always asks first, to make sure Sam wouldn’t just rather sleep. “Yeah, Steve?”

“Do you ever think about alternate realities?”

Sam’s eyes open in surprise. “It’s gonna be that kind of talk tonight, huh?” he says, but he settles more comfortably into Steve’s arms to let him know that he’s not actually annoyed.

Steve chuckles, a little ruefully, and kisses the back of Sam’s neck. “I guess so. Do you mind?”

“Never,” Sam tells him, rolling again to get his lips on Steve’s one more time. “Go ahead: alternate realities?”

“Yeah. Like parallel dimensions,” Steve explains. His hand is low on Sam’s belly, but his touch is tender, protective more than arousing — not that Sam could get it up again, even if it was. “Where you’re still you, and I’m still me, but you’re a firefighter, and I’m a dancer or something?”

“A dancer?” Sam repeats, amused. “Baby, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but you have no rhythm.”

Steve makes a small offended sound. “Maybe alternate-reality me does, you never know.”

Sam considers this, shakes his head. “Not likely.”

“Okay, then, not a dancer,” Steve concedes. “I’m a... a grad student in history, and you’re a barista at the campus Starbucks.”

“Hey, now, wait a minute,” Sam protests. “How come I got demoted?”

Steve laughs. It’s a wonderful sound. “Well, how else are we going to meet? Grad students don’t hang out with firefighters.”

“Depends,” Sam says, leaving aside for a moment the thrill that runs through him at the thought that Steve thinks they’d be together no matter their circumstances. “Are you the kind of grad student who’d sneak a reefer into the library?”

“Sam, please,” Steve scoffs. “You know me.”

“So, that’s a yes, then,” Sam teases warmly.

Steve chuckles again and pulls him even closer against his chest. They lie there in silence a few moments, and Sam savors the endorphins and affection trickling through his body. He’s pleasantly numb, and he’s almost getting sleepy when Steve shifts and clears his throat.

“It’s just— I was online today,” he says, and Sam drags his eyes open. He has a feeling Steve’s getting to the important part. “I was reading about alternate histories.”

“What led you there?” Sam has to ask.

Steve sighs. “Oh, you know. _Firefly_ led me to the Civil War, which led me to Jim Crow, which led me to the Confederate flag, which led me to—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Sam interjects. “Good old Wikipedia, huh?”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, with a huff of laughter. “Long story short, I ended up on a Reddit thread about what the world would be like if the Allies hadn’t won the war.”

Sam’s almost afraid to ask. “And?”

“Not pretty,” Steve concludes. “But that’s not actually what I wanted to tell you about.”

“Okay,” Sam says. He waits, but Steve doesn’t go on. He moves around behind Sam, extracting his arm and rolling over on to his back. Sam turns over, too, and watches him closely.

“There’s a whole lot of people out there who think I’m HYDRA,” Steve says finally, all in one breath.

Sam frowns, confused. “That... doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, maybe I shouldn’t say it like that,” Steve corrects himself. “They don’t think I’m HYDRA, per se, but they have theories. Most of them are complete garbage, but some of them are almost plausible.”

“Almost?” Sam repeats faintly, but Steve keeps talking.

“What’s more troubling is that there’s a lot of them whose favorite pastime is imagining me as a HYDRA agent.”

His tone is bitter, no trace of the sleepy happiness that was there five minutes ago, which worries Sam. He slides his hand into Steve’s, interlacing their fingers. Steve’s mouth twitches like he wants to smile, but his brows are still drawn together, his jaw tight. 

“They’ve got it all worked out,” he goes on. “The whole world was brainwashed when Red Skull touched the Tesseract back in ’43. See, I was actually working for him, and when he knew he was going to die, he and I tricked everyone into thinking I was a good guy. Now, I’m the best undercover agent HYDRA’s ever had, and some day I’m gonna come clean and take over the world.”

A few seconds after Steve finishes talking, Sam realizes that his mouth is hanging open. “What,” he manages finally, “the fuck?”

“And that’s not even the worst part,” Steve says, flipping over so they’re face-to-face.

“It’s not?” Sam feels slightly nauseous. “Then what’s—”

“They’re excited about it,” Steve tells him. “They’re gushing about it, long posts — _What if, what if, what if_ — and there’s art, and comics, and t-shirts, and stories, and—”

He breaks off, swallows like there’s bile in his throat, too. “They really want it to be true, Sam. They really hope that everything I stand for is — is a lie. They want me to... I can’t even say it.”

“They want you to be a bad guy,” Sam supplies quietly. “Chief bad guy. Nazi bad guy.”

“It makes me sick,” Steve mutters. “And it wouldn’t be so bad— I mean, it would be, but I’d maybe be able to take it if the people saying it weren’t actually fucking Nazis.”

Sam shoots him a puzzled look, and Steve half-shrugs. “Nat helped me look them up. An awful lot of them post Nazi propaganda on Twitter.”

“How lovely,” Sam comments.

“Nazi propaganda with my face on it, no less,” Steve adds. “And yours.”

Sam’s eyebrows fly up. “Mine?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Steve, offhandedly. “Red Skull brainwashed you, too. You’re actually a criminal.”

“Naturally,” Sam mutters. “Why else would I be working with you?”

Steve expels a sharp breath and flops on to his back. “I just don’t know what to do about this,” he tells the ceiling. “I mean, short of knocking on all their doors and punching them in the face, which Nat tells me is assault.”

Sam hums in agreement. “Can’t solve every problem with your fists. Fun as it may sound.”

Steve nods. “And I’m tempted to address it — to say something publically about how wrong they are, but—”

“You don’t want to feed the trolls,” Sam guesses.

“Exactly,” Steve agrees fervently. “So, I was thinking maybe you and I could get married.”

Sam’s nodding before he registers the question — his brain is a full two steps behind, and he’s still thinking of ways to punch Nazis without getting arrested. He only realizes what Steve’s said when Steve rolls over, takes both his hands in his, and says, “Really? You want to?”

“I want to— what?” Sam stammers. “Steve, I— why?”

“Why?” Steve repeats, with a little laugh. “Well, I hope because we love each other.”

Sam’s mouth is moving, but he can’t seem to muster any sound. Meanwhile, Steve’s got his big blue puppy dog eyes out in full force. Sam sighs.

“Steve,” he begins. “Of course we love each other. And yeah, I want to get married. To you, even. But—” He holds up a hand, fending off the kiss that Steve is leaning in for. “But baby, you’re doing that thing again, that thing where you take off running and lap me three times before I even get my shoes tied.”

“I’m not—”

“Sweetheart,” Sam interrupts. He glances at the clock on the wall. “Less than ten minutes ago, we were talking about how, even in an alternate universe, you can’t dance.”

“I still think I could,” Steve grumbles.

“See?” Sam laughs. “It’s that fresh. So for you to jump from that, to what you found in the darkest, dankest corners of the internet, to proposing to me? You’ve got to give me a second to catch up.” He puts his hands back in Steve’s and smiles. “To catch you,” he clarifies. “Since you so clearly want me to.”

“I do,” Steve says earnestly.

“So tell me your plan. Let me see that tactical mind at work, Cap,” Sam says. The title sounds weird in their bedroom, but Steve’s blushing and grinning, so Sam figures it can’t be all bad.

“Well,” Steve begins, “I was thinking that if we came out, it’d be a pretty clear sign that we’re not Nazis.”

“Fair enough,” Sam has to admit.

“And, once we’re out and married, we can more publically support queer issues, go to Pride, maybe some rallies.”

Sam nods. They’ve been doing some form of activist work for years now — Black Lives Matter protests, Planned Parenthood escorting, plus some workers’ strikes that make Steve nostalgic for the 1930s. So it makes sense that Steve would want to do this, too, for a cause that’s so close to his heart.

“And,” Steve adds, his eyes sparkling, “while we’re there, if we get the chance, I  _suppose_ we could punch a few Nazis, too.”

“If we have to,” Sam agrees, playing at reluctant resignation.

“I figure, we can say whatever we want about our motivations, but these assholes will always find a way to twist it,” Steve goes on after a little pause. His jaw is set again, his grip on Sam’s hands firm and steady. “But if we _do_ something, if we put ourselves on the front line of this fight and prove to them that they’re wrong, without even acknowledging their insane theories — because you never give Nazis a platform — then maybe we can cut them off at the source. Maybe we’ll even inspire a few to come around to our way of thinking.”

“That’s pretty inspiring, all right,” Sam says. He grins. “Now, be honest with me: how many times did you practice that speech in front of the mirror?”

“Not even once,” Steve replies, and, damn him, he seems so wholesome about it. Sam shakes his head in awe.

“You’re something else, Steve Rogers,” he says. He shifts closer, raises Steve’s hands to his lips and kisses his fingers. “Fuck all the haters, of course I’ll marry you.”

Steve looks like a puppy again, but one on his way to the park this time, rather than the vet. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sam assures him. “There’s nobody I’d rather punch Nazis with.”

Steve kisses him, soft and warm, but with an edge that Sam recognizes— damn super soldier refractory periods.

“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Steve says.

“You and your pillow talk,” Sam teases, and he kisses his fiancé again.


End file.
